Ovarian cancer is pants. That's the message the GO Girls cancer support group wants to get across at it joins as a coalition partner for World Ovarian Cancer Day. Each year, ovarian cancer charities around the globe join together on May 8 to raise the profile of the disease. GO Girls, who support women with gynaecological cancers, are supporting the campaign this year which is being led by author and ovarian cancer patient Fi Munro. More than 7,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer annually in the UK, of whom 4,200 women die of the disease.

The World Ovarian Cancer Coalition says that just 45 per cent of women are likely to survive five years compared to 89 per cent of women with breast cancer.

Hilary Maxwell, GO Girls chairman, said: "We are asking all women to show their support by wearing a pair of teal pants and take a selfie of themselves or a picture with their friends to show their support. Teal is the colour for ovarian cancer and what better way to show your support?

"Women have done this with breast wearing pink bras to raise profile of breast cancer and it’s about time we did something similar for ovarian cancer."

Jen Barron, GO Girls head of strategy, said Britain has been highlighted as the lowest in the world for ovarian cancer diagnosis.

She said: "This is a disgrace. We believe this is likely to be two-fold: lack of knowledge of the symptoms by women – which is why we launched our ABC campaign - and too often a lack of recognition by primary care providers who often believe symptoms to be related to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)."

The National Institute of Clinical Evidence says IBS rarely develops for the first time in women over 50 – a key age group where incidence of ovarian cancer is higher. Consequently, symptoms may often be mistakenly attributed to IBS, say the GO Girls.

“We are asking GPs to think about this carefully and ensure they ask all the right and pertinent questions of their patients who often may feel embarrassed discussing these," Hilary added.